6/8/2026
John K. Soldner, B.S. ’77, M.S. ’79, M.B.A. University of Chicago ’88, utilized his aerospace engineering degrees from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as the foundation for a comprehensive 47-year career. The importance of his education from U. of I. drove his desire to give back. The Grainger College of Engineering Department of Aerospace Engineering is honoring him with the Harry H. Hilton Service Award.
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John K. Soldner, B.S. ’77, M.S. ’79, M.B.A. University of Chicago ’88, utilized his aerospace engineering degrees from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as the foundation for a comprehensive 47-year career. The importance of his education from U. of I. drove his desire to give back. The Grainger College of Engineering Department of Aerospace Engineering is honoring him with the Harry H. Hilton Service Award.
Soldner served on the department’s alumni advisory board for over a decade, provided guest lectures in aerospace undergrad classes and mentored undergrad students over the years.
Additionally, he was instrumental in the creation and funding of the Class of ’77 Scholarship and the John K. and Robyn B. Soldner Scholarship in Aerospace Engineering. He serves as a champion for the department in the Washington, D.C. area. In 2017, he received the department’s Distinguished Alumni Award.
Soldner said, “I received a 4-year Illinois State Scholarship that enabled me to attend U. of I. Now that I am in a position to give back, my wife and I created an aerospace engineering scholarship so that others would have the same opportunity.”
After completing his master’s degree, Soldner accepted a position with the Boeing Company where he represented Boeing’s technical team at Perkin-Elmer to design the thermal control system for the highly specialized Hubble Telescope optics. In 1980, continuing his focus on space, he joined Science Applications International Corporation/Leidos in Schaumburg, Illinois, where he performed interplanetary mission analyses for the Solar System Exploration Division.
In 1988, he moved to Houston where he led the SAIC Division performing the integrated Lunar/Mars Exploration mission analyses that were used as the basis for President Bush’s speech in July 1989, calling for a return of humans to the Moon and on to Mars. He relocated to Washington, DC, in 1992 to manage SAIC/Leidos’ support for NASA headquarters, providing reviews and confirmation assessments of Space and Earth Science flight missions.
Post 9/11, Soldner has focused on SAIC/Leidos’ multiple intelligence community contracts involving large-scale systems engineering, educational and training support projects. He leads scientific and technical analyses regarding missile, launch vehicle and space systems. He currently leads a team of subject matter experts to bring an aerospace industry perspective to analyses supporting intelligence community issues. He supported the development of a long- term intelligence community curriculum which has been used to train thousands of new analysts.
Soldner has been an adjunct professor at the George Washington University since 1996, teaching graduate-level courses in spacecraft design, space propulsion, and launch vehicle design. He supports learning operations and the strategic development of courses by applying an in-depth knowledge of real-world aerospace challenges and problems to classroom instruction. He also enjoys sharing his knowledge with others as a docent at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.